Learning Flashcards
Learning
Can be defined as a relatively permanent change in behaviour that occurs as a result of experience.
Reflex
Automatic involuntary behaviour that does not require prior experience and occurs in the same way each time.
Fixed-action pattern
An innate predisposition to behave in a certain way in response to specific environmental stimulus that is observable within a particular species or subgroup of a species.
Maturation
A developmental process leading towards maturity, based on the orderly sequence of changes that occurs in the nervous system and other bodily structures controlled by genetic inheritance.
Plasticity
The ability of the brain’s neural structure or function to be changed by experience throughout the lifespan.
Developmental plasticity
Refers to changes in the brain’s neural structure in response to experience during its growth and development.
Synaptogenesis
The process of forming new synapses.
Synaptic pruning
The process of eliminating synaptic connections.
Adaptive plasticity
Refers to changes occurring in the brain’s neural structure to enable adjustment to experience, to compensate for lost function and/or to maximise remaining functions in the event of brain damage.
Rerouting
An undamaged neuron that has lost a connection with an active neuron may seek a new active neuron and connect with it instead.
Sprouting
The growth of new bushier nerve fibres with more branches to make new connections.
Sensitive period
A period in development when an organism is more responsive to certain environmental stimuli or experiences.
Experience-expectant learning
Takes place when the brain encounters the experience that is expected, ideally in a sensitive period because this is the best time for it to occur.
Experience-dependent learning
Refers to learning that ‘depends’ on exposure to specific ‘experience’ at any time during an individual’s development.
Critical period
A specific period in development during which an organism is most vulnerable to the deprivation or absence of certain environmental stimuli or experiences.
Conditioning
The process of learning associations between a stimulus in the environment (one event) and a behavioural response (another event).
Stimulus
Any object or event that elicits a response from an organism.
Response
A reaction by an organism to a stimulus.
Classical conditioning
Refers to a type of learning that occurs through the repeated association of two (or more) different stimuli.
Unconditioned stimulus
Any stimulus that consistently produces a particular, naturally occurring, automatic response.
Unconditioned response
The response that occurs automatically when the UCS is presented.
Conditioned stimulus
The stimulus that is ‘neutral’ at the start of the conditioning process and does not normally produce the unconditioned response.
Conditioned response
The learned response that is produced by the CS.
Neutral stimulus
Anything that does not normally produce a predictable response.
Acquisition
The overall process during which an organism learns to associate two events.
Extinction
The gradual decrease in the strength or rate of a CR that occurs when the UCS is no longer presented.
Spontaneous recovery
The reappearance of a CR when the CS is presented, following a rest period after the CR appears to have been extinguished.
Stimulus generalisation
The tendency for another stimulus that is similar to the original CS to produce a response that is similar to the CR.